This project will result in a study of the history of mental health hospitals and social policy in the United States since 1875. It will analyze mental hospitals as medical and social institutions, the various methods of therapy in different periods and their relationship to general cultural and intellectural currents, administrative and financial issues, the attitudes of society and government toward the mentally ill, social and class differences in care and treatment, the origins of concepts of mental health and diseases, the relationship of the community and hospital, the development of state and other types of mental hospitals and the administrative and legal framework in which they operated, regional differences in types of hospitals, and the emergence of psychiatry, psychology, and social work (as well as other allied occupations) as important professions as well as the relationships between these professions. In brief, the objective will be to place current issues in mental health within a meaningful historical framework. While utilizing standard historical techniques, this study will also employ an interdisciplinary approach by incoporating the findings and methodologies of other social and behavioral sciences and related disciplines.